What Happened in the Crate
by brophabulous
Summary: A three part story of what happened to FitzSimmons after Ward ejected the crate that they were in from the Bus and how they get away. My first published fic so all feedback is appreciated.
1. Waking Up

"Jemma," she heard a familiar voice saying. She was lying on her back, eyes closed. Wherever she was, it was rocking, as if she were on a boat.

"Jemma!" the voice was yelling now. She opened her eyes. All she saw was a black ceiling, but this wasn't her bunk on The Bus. She tried to sit up, but she sat up too fast and felt a pain on the back of her head and got dizzy. Once the room had stopped spinning, she looked around. She was in a black, rectangular room that had a singular window in its singular door, with a few boxes and their contents against the wall opposite. She was almost in the center of the room, facing the boxes.

"Oh, Jemma, thank God you're alive! You got hit in the head and you wouldn't wake up and… just, thank God you're alive." She turned around to see Fitz, in the corner to the left of the door, clutching his leg.

"I'm fine," she said, rubbing the sore spot on her head. "Just a bump on the head. Maybe a minor concussion. How long was I out?"

"I don't know. Twenty minutes? Maybe half an hour? It's difficult to tell in here."

"We're lucky that the crate landed upward, I mean-"

"Why? The door won't do any good. If we open it, water would come flooding in and the crate would sink and we would drown."

"We're probably in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, we're bound to wash ashore somewhere. Wouldn't you prefer the door to be the proper way if that were to happen?" Fitz looked embarrassed for not thinking of that. He hated it whenever Jemma thought of something before he did, but at the same time he was always proud of her. Jemma noticed Fitz's shamed expression and tried to change the subject.

"Now, what is in these crates?" asked, gesturing towards the opposite wall.

"As far as I can tell, not much of use for our survival as ocean-crate people. Just some Hydra weapons and armor, I think." Jemma sighed and after a few attempts she stood up and looked out the window and saw nothing but the ocean and a black speck in the far distance in the sky.

"I'm sorry," Fitz whispered. Jemma looked down at him.

"What are you apologizing for? It's Ward's fault that we're here, not yours," she insisted. She sat down next to him on his right.

"But it is my fault. I wouldn't listen to you, or Coulson, or Skye, or anyone. I wouldn't believe that Ward would be Hydra or do any of those terrible things by his own choice. I'm sorry Jemma. I was wrong. Utterly and completely wrong. And now it's my fault that we're stuck in a crate filled with a couple of useless boxes in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico." He looked down and started sobbing quietly.

"It's all my fault," he whispered softly. Jemma put her arm around him and he looked back at her.

"Nonsense," she reasoned. "Ward could have easily dropped us over land, killing us instantly, or he could have left us there for Garrett to kill us, had he recovered from your brilliant EMP, or-" she paused, noticing that this was only making it worse. She decided another change in subject would be in order.

"Here, let me take a look at that leg of yours," she said. He took his hand off of his shin, and winced as he gently pulled his pant leg up. Jemma examined it thoroughly and said, "Well, it's definitely broken, but it looks like a clean break so if I set it and splint it now it should heal up nice and proper. Now, if I could just find something to use as a splint…" She trailed off as she got up and searched through the boxes. It wasn't long until she found a Hydra baton and deemed it suitable. She made her way back over to Fitz and kneeled next to his outstretched leg.

"This is going to hurt," she warned.

"How much?" he asked nervously. She bit her lip and looked at him pitifully.

"A lot." He squeezed his eyes shut and scrunched up his nose.

"Just get it over with." She thrusted his leg back into its proper location and Fitz screamed.

"It's okay, the worst part is over. Now, give me your tie."

"What? Why?"

"Because, Fitz, I need something to secure the splint with."

"But this is my favorite tie, Jemma!"

"You can replace the tie! Do you want to walk normally again?" He groaned, took off his tie, and handed it to her.

"Okay, what I need you to do is hold your leg."

"Hold my leg?"

"Fitz!"

"Alright, alright. Holding my leg." She grabbed the baton and put it next to his leg. She heard him wince a little as she tore his tie in half, tying one part around his ankle and another towards his knee.

"There we are. All done," Jemma proclaimed, "And now we wait." She slumped back next to him and exhaled deeply.


	2. The Problem with the Boxes

Unsure where to go from there, they sat for a few hours, until Fitz broke the silence.

"Jemma?" he asked with a worried undertone. She looked over at him.

"This crate is airtight, correct?"

"Yes, don't worry, Fitz, no water will get in."

"I'm not worried about the water, Jemma. I'm worried about the air."

"What?"

"The air, Jemma. If this crate is airtight, we have a limited air supply. If we don't wash ashore or get rescued or whatever in… let's see this crate is about 7x7x9, and we've been in here for almost three hours… if we don't get out of this crate in about thirty hours, we'll run out of air, Jemma." She didn't know how to process this information.

"No, no, that can't be. We can't tell how far the nearest land is, because there's only one window in this damn crate. Oh, I know, we can turn the crate vertically so that the door is on top, we can open the door and have a good circulation of air, and try to get a bearing, and-"

"How do you expect that to happen, Jemma? With the state my leg's in I'm not going anywhere, and you've been onto the other side of the crate where all the boxes are and the crate barely shifted. It's probably weighted. There's nothing we can do. And incase you forgot, Jemma, the more we scream about it, the less time we have air." They were silent for a moment

"Well, there has to be something we can do," she insisted. She got up and walked back over to the boxes.

"I'll take an inventory. I'll go through every last box. Make sure we didn't miss anything and that it is all just weapons and armor. I'll start moving the boxes over towards the door a bit, you can sit on this wall and keep watch out the window." Fitz reluctantly scooted over to the other wall as Jemma started sorting through the boxes, but after a few more hours of going through them over and over again, she found nothing but weapons, useless in their crate unless they wanted to drown themselves.

By the time Jemma started to inventory for the fifth time, Fitz had had enough.

"It's no use Jemma! There is absolutely nothing useful in this crate! Please, just give it a rest. The sun's starting to go down." Jemma looked outside and saw realized they were indeed losing light and the sky was starting to change colors. She couldn't believe Fitz's unfamiliar pessimistic attitude.

"So what do you want to do, then, Fitz? Do you want to sit here and wait to see which outcome we get? Wash ashore somewhere, get rescued, or suffocate to death? If we wash ashore somewhere, who knows where it will be. For all we know, we could wash up on the shore of some province in Mexico where there is a gang that kills random white people who show up on the beach. And if we got rescued? How would that even work? We have no way to alert anyone of our position; Hydra took everything that we had on us. We are literally in the middle of a gigantic body of water, where it will soon be dark, and we have no way of casting light. We could get hit by a bloody giant ship and be killed that way! And if none of that happens? Suffocating to death might not be the worst thing."

"Jemma, don't say that. I think you're just feeling stressed. And Hungry. And dehydrated. And I know how you get cranky and say things you don't mean when you're, well, stressed, hungry, and dehydrated. Not to mention you probably have a minor concussion. We won't be able to do anything once it gets dark, so we might as well just go to sleep. We can start brainstorming after we've had a good night's rest."

"I suppose you're right. Although I don't see how we could have a good night's rest if we're sleeping on the hard black floor of a crate in the middle of water, but I suppose you're right," she agreed, and sat down next to Fitz, leaned her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes.

"A gang that kills random white people who show up on the beach," Fitz quietly repeated to himself. Jemma always said the most ridiculous things when she was hungry. He thought it was hilarious.

When Fitz woke up, he noticed Jemma was rummaging through the boxes again.

"Jemma! You've been through those at least five times last night. They won't help. Don't tire yourself out on that. Go look out the window and figure out how long we slept for."

"I don't know what time it is. We're not facing East or West. I think it's before noon though. When do we have until? A couple hours before sunset?"

"Yes, and unfortunately I don't think that there is anything we can do until then."  
"But last night you said-"

"I said what I said so that you would go to sleep. I guess I knew it would eventually lead to this. I'm sorry, Jemma." She sighed and sat back down next to him.

"So, what are we going to do, Fitz? Are we just going to sit here and wait for the Avengers to come here, in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, to save us?" Fitz forced a laugh.

"Yes, Jemma. That's exactly what we're going to do," he said half-heartedly.


	3. Out of Air

At that point they were silent just to conserve oxygen. There was nothing that they could do but sit and hope. After a few more hours, the air started getting thin, so Jemma spoke while she could.

"I was just kidding," she confessed.

"What?" Fitz asked, looking over at her.

"About the Avengers. I suppose I was trying to cheer the pair of us up. Fat lot of good that did. We don't have much time left now do we?" He looked at the sun out the window.

"No, I suppose not," he said. The sun was getting low in the sky now. He looked at her and cleared his throat.

"Jemma," he started, looking down very nervously, "If we're being honest, there's something I need to tell you, and I want to say it before we- we-" He looked up at her. She smiled sympathetically and nodded as if to tell him to go on.

"Jemma, we've been friends for a really long time, but I recently realized something that's really important. I realized that I l-"

"Oh, hush, I know," she interrupted with a little smile.

"What? You didn't even let me finish!"

"I know exactly what you're going to say, and frankly I'm surprised that it took you almost 24 hours of knowing we were running out of air to say so."

"But you didn't even let me say it!"

"I know."

"If you know so much then what do you have to say about it?" he demanded, becoming very frustrated. She made a face that was a sort of a mocking pondering.

"I guess I would have to say that the feelings are reciprocated," she said with a slightly wheezy undertone, kissing him on the cheek, grabbing his hand, and leaning her head on his shoulder. He wasn't sure what had just happened was real. She- what? There wasn't much time left, so he just went with it. They sat together in silence for a few moments. Fitz coughed and looked up out the window. His eyes widened.

"Jemma!" he said, excitement in his voice. She looked at him and then looked out the window. Her eyes widened as she stood up, wheezed, and ran to the window.

"It's a ship!" she exclaimed. A giant freighter had appeared very near to the crate. She started pounding on the window and screaming as loud as she could to get the ship's attention. Fitz joined in on the screaming, but his leg was too bad for him to go to the door. Hope filled them up for the first time since they had landed in the water. They screamed and screamed as the ship went past, but their attempts proved useless. Jemma turned to look at Fitz, a look of utter hopelessness in her eyes. She looked as if she were about to say something, but before she could do anything, she started having a coughing fit and collapsed. Fitz couldn't process what was happening right away, but he scooted over to where she was, wheezing. He shook her shoulders. He screamed her name. Her eyes opened slightly.

"What happened?" she asked weakly.

"You passed out. You were screaming and pounding on the glass. I don't think we have much air left, but your concussion probably didn't help with the lack of oxygen."

"I'm so sleepy, Fitz."

"No, Jemma, you have to stay awake. Please, Jemma, stay awake." If he were not as dehydrated as he was, tears would have been streaming down his cheeks. He could barely speak anymore.

"Please stay awake," he whispered, as she closed her eyes. He began sobbing and wheezing simultaneously. He scooted to sit against the door and he didn't know what to do. He was alone now. There had to be something he could do. Then he did something he hadn't thought of until that very moment. He checked his pockets. He thought everything to be useless until he found it. That quarter that wasn't a quarter. He turned it on and managed to whisper into it.

"This is Agent Fitz. Does anyone copy?" He listened, hoping to hear Triplett. He had never wanted to hear another human being's voice so badly as he wanted to hear one right now.

"This is Agent Leopold Fitz of whatever the hell SHIELD is anymore. Does anyone copy?" He repeated messages like this until he could barely breathe. He had almost lost all hope, when there was suddenly a break in the static.

"This is Agent Antoine Triplett of whatever the hell SHIELD is anymore. I copy. What is your location, Fitz?" Fitz almost smiled, and put all the energy he had in him into hoisting himself up to look out the window. He winced.

"I do not know my exact coordinates, but we are in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico in a giant metal crate." His leg could not support his weight and he collapsed.

"Please hurry, Trip. Jemma- she's- she isn't breathing."

"We're on our way, Fitz- Leo. For now, just, conserve your air as best as you can." Fitz looked around as things started to get blurry. He was counting down until his last breath. As he closed his eyes, he could have sworn he saw someone out the window.

Jemma opened her eyes and looked around. She was in a medical bay on the plane that their team had been on. She felt a bandage around her head. She looked to her left. On another bed was Fitz, his leg properly bandaged. He slowly opened his eyes and saw her. His eyes widened and a huge smile appeared on his face.

"Oh, Jemma! I thought you were- and we were-" Jemma laughed a little.

"We have some things to figure out, don't we?" Fitz looked embarrassed again.

"Yeah, I suppose we do."

"Well, look who's awake?" They heard a familiar voice. Coulson had entered the room, followed shortly by Skye, Trip, and May.

"We thought we'd never see you again!" Jemma exclaimed. Fitz still was smiling.  
"So," he said, "what did we miss?"


End file.
